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There is a saying in geopolitics that peace summits are generally a perfect time to prepare for war. This thinking stems from the military philosophy of Sun Tzu, who believed that when a nation is weak it is important to appear strong, and when a nation is at its most dangerous it is important to appear weak or “diplomatic.” Sun Tzu also often praised the virtues of distraction and sleight of hand, not only in war, but in politics as well.

I would note that Sun Tzu and the Eastern “sleight of hand” methodology is not only a mainstay of Chinese as well as North Korean thought, but also required reading for Western covert intelligence agencies. It is important to fully understand this methodology when examining the East vs. West paradigm, because almost everything you see and hear when it comes to relations with countries like China and North Korea is theater. Their governments have hidden schemes, our governments have hidden schemes and the globalists manipulating both sides have plans that trump everything else.

Keep all of this in mind when you hear about the sudden and almost inexplicable announcements of peace summits with North Korea in May or June between Pyongyang and the Trump administration.

Looking at the scenario purely from the perspective of political motive, it’s difficult to discern why Trump has been so obsessed with North Korea since he first entered office. North Korea has always had nuclear capability as well as the ability to deploy those nukes in one form or another against the U.S. North Korea has also always been involved in further nuclear testing and missile testing. The idea that such testing today is somehow a “violation” of arbitrary international standards and etiquette is absurd. Almost every nation in the world is engaged in military expansion and development.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

De-escalation With North Korea, Escalation With Iran

April 30, 2018

De-escalation With North Korea, Escalation With Iran

Photo by DAVID HOLT | CC BY 2.0

As a journalist, I have always dreaded reporting on meetings between world leaders billed as “historic” or “momentous” or just plain “significant”. Such pretensions are usually phoney or, even if something of interest really does happen, its importance is exaggerated or oversimplified.

But plus ca change is not always a safe slogan for the cautious reporter, because real change does occasionally take place and professional cynics are caught on the hop.

Watching the “historic” meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea at the Panmunjom border crossing this weekend – and listening to reporters bubbling over with excitement – it was difficult not to be captured by the enthusiastic mood.

But I recall similar meetings that were once billed as transforming the world for the better and are now largely forgotten. How many people remember the Reykjavik summit between Reagan and Gorbachev in 1986, which once seemed so important? Then there was the famous handshake on the lawn of the White House between Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat confirming a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993 that, whatever else happened, did not produce peace.

Rabin was assassinated two years later by a religious fanatic and Arafat died with his hopes for Palestinian self-determination in ruins. Sceptics who had argued that disparity in political and military strength between Israel and the Palestinians was too great for a real accord turned out to be right.

The meeting in Panmunjom feels as if it has got more substance, primarily because the balance of power between the two sides is more even: Kim has nuclear weapons and claims to have a ballistic missile which could reach the US. Their range and reliability may be exaggerated but nobody wants to find out the hard way.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Media Never, Ever Gives Peace a Chance

April 10, 2018

The Media Never, Ever Gives Peace a Chance

At this writing, President Trump is considering “the possibility of retaliation in Syria in response to a suspected chemical attack on young children and families in the Syrian city of Douma,” reported CBS News. “If it’s the Russians, if it’s Syria, if it’s Iran, if it’s all of them together, we’ll figure it out,” Trump said. “Nothing’s off the table,” including a military attack by the United States.

Whether that possibility involves a cruise missile strike, drone attacks or conventional bombing raids by fighter jets, this is deadly serious business. People, mostly innocent civilians and Syrian grunts who had nothing to do with the “suspected” chemical attack, will die. People will be injured. Survivors will be traumatized. An attack could escalate and expand the current conflict, leading to more death and destruction.

The stakes are high, but U.S. policymakers are as glibly insouciant as if they were choosing between Hulu and Netflix. This is not new or Trumpian. It’s always been like this. American leaders don’t take these life-and-death decisions seriously.

If the United States were a sane country populated by rational, civically-engaged citizens, Americans would pour derision and ridicule on anyone who seriously considered raining bombs over a “suspected” anything. And the skepticism in this case ought to be exponentially greater considering that this is Syria.

We’ve already been down this “Syria’s Assad regime used chemical weapons against their own people so we should bomb his forces” road. It happened under Obama. What is certain here is uncertainty: maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. As legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh pointed out in 2014, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) believed that at least one major faction of the Syrian opposition, the al-Nusra Front, possessed significant manufacturing facilities and stockpiles of sarin nerve agent and other proscribed toxic chemicals.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Are Nuclear Weapons in a Multipolar World Order a Guarantee for Peace?

March 14, 2018

FEDERICO PIERACCINI | 12.03.2018 | WORLD / AMERICAS | FEATURED STORY

Are Nuclear Weapons in a Multipolar World Order a Guarantee for Peace?

In the previous article I explained how the invention of the nuclear device altered the balance of power after WWII and during the cold war era. In this second article I intend to explain why nuclear-armed powers decrease the likelihood of a nuclear apocalypse, as counterintuitive as it seems.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the power that had hitherto counterbalanced the US ceased to exist. The world order changed again, this time becoming unipolar, bringing in its wake 30 years of death and destruction to practically every corner of the globe, particularly to the Middle East, Europe and Asia. With the end of a balance of power, the prospect of an American century (PNAC), so cherished by the neoconservatives and other fanatics of American exceptionalism, became real (see parts 2, 3 and 4 of an earlier series). For policymakers in Washington, the world was transformed into a battlefield, and the quest for global hegemony was the new (unrealistic) goal to be achieved.

What has happened over the last thirty years is still fresh in everybody’s minds, with the United States ready to invade and bomb dozens of countries, in particular Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Serbia, Syria and Libya. Further chaos was wrought on the globe through the Arab Spring, armed coups and color revolutions. Every means was used to spread the influence of the United States across the globe, from the financial terrorism of bodies like Wall Street and the IMF, to the real terrorism of battalions of neo-Nazi extremists in Ukraine or fanatical Islamists in Syria and Libya. Washington’s actions have placed continuous pressure on those it deems its mortal enemies, particularly over the last 10 years. Iran and North Korea have been living under this pressure for decades. China and Russia, thanks to economic growth and military power, have been able to put to a halt the attempts of American neoconservatives and liberal interventionists to alter the balance of power in the world. Until only recently, Washington did not even recognize any peer competitors. But we could suggest that since Crimea returned to being part of the Russian Federation in 2014, the America’s unipolar moment has been fading.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peace: The One Thing the US Warmongers Do Not Want

February 12, 2018

Peace: The One Thing the US Warmongers Do Not Want

Vice President Mike Pence made fools of the US at the South Korea Olympics. Kim Jong Un’s sister stole the show.

For a welcome change of pace, a thaw between North and South Korea is taking place. Unfortunately, the US wants no part of it as vice president Pence showed the world at the Olympics.

View image on Twitter

ian bremmer
✔@ianbremmer

Kim Jong Un’s sister and Pence, trying very hard to pretend the other isn’t there. #OpeningCeremony

9:15 AM – Feb 9, 2018

New York Magazine describes the great lengths Pence took to make a fool of the US at the opening ceremonies (above Tweet) and even more so at at a dinner party on Friday put on by South Korean president Moon Jae-in.

After showing up late, the VP intended to quickly leave after a photo session. Moon asked him to greet the other dignitaries at the event and Pence did, shaking the hands of everyone at the VIP table except for Kim Yong-nam [Kim Jong Un’s sister].

By leaving early, Pence missed out on a special dessert — a chocolate representation of the Korean peninsula with a dark chocolate piece of barbed wire laying over it.

And then, during the ceremonies, as North and South Korean athletes entered the stadium together under a unified flag, Pence and his wife Karen remained seated while everyone around them rose to applaud.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

This Was Mises’s Main Case for Peace

January 30, 2018

This Was Mises’s Main Case for Peace

War only destroys. Peace, on the other hand, creates.

War is absolutely devastating. There is no dancing around that fact. Not only is it responsible for the loss of countless human lives, it also leaves an immeasurable amount of physical and emotional destruction in its wake.

The market has taught us that incentives work.

Opponents of war may decry war until they are blue in the face, begging those in power to consider its human costs. But these cries almost always fall upon deaf ears, as history has tragically demonstrated.

When it comes to politicians and war, the ends always justify the means, even when those means are human lives. And while human life is sacred, this truth alone has never been enough to convince global leaders to seek an agenda of peace rather than one of destruction.

But the market has taught us that incentives work. So instead of relying on a method that has not done much to deter war over the centuries, why not try an argument that plays to the interests of those in power?

As Mises explains in Liberalism, the most impactful argument against war comes in the form of a basic economic principle from which we each benefit: the division of labor.

He writes:

How harmful war is to the development of human civilization becomes clearly apparent once one understands the advantages derived from the division of labor. The division of labor turns the self-sufficient individual into the ζῷον πολιτικόν (social animal) dependent on his fellow men, the social animal of which Aristotle spoke.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Peace Fallacy

January 29, 2018

The Peace Fallacy

Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of the its population. . . . In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.

. . . . This process cannot be a liberal or peaceful one. . . .–George Kennan in a 1948 memorandum[i]

Andrew Bacevich is a leading commentator on and critic of America’s senseless “habit for war,” as he puts it. His foremost concern is our going-on-sixteen-year debacle in Afghanistan, though he is naturally troubled by our other misadventures in Iraq and North Africa, as well as our propensity for international violence in general.

Bacevich has recently asked when we might see “A Harvey Weinstein Moment for America’s Wars?”[ii] When, in other words, will something like the “sudden shift in the cultural landscape” that was precipitated by the brave women who stood up against Weinstein be seen in response to “our penchant for waging war across much of the planet”? Although he remains deeply disappointed by the distracted acceptance of these wars by the American public, he claims to find some reason for optimism in the recent “Weinstein moment”: “on some matters, at least, the American people retain an admirable capacity for outrage.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

War, Peace and Recession

January 3, 2018

War, Peace and Recession

December and January are usually two busy months for researchers as they release prediction/forecast of the New Year. We are going to briefly discuss two such forecasts here.

Top 5 World War III Crises
The first one is a geopolitical forecast, 5 Places World War III Could Start in 2018, published last month. Now let’s take a quick look at the top five crises that could lead to the greatest conflict in 2018:

North Korea: North Korea is probably the worst foreign-policy and war potential facing the world today. The country has repeatedly conducted missile and nuclear tests over the last decade, and North Korea is showing no inclination to relent under US pressure. The neighboring China is said to secretly support North Korea, while president Trump claims he has a bigger nuke button than Kim Jong-un. The escalating tension means likely war conflict between US (South Korea, possibly Japan) vs. North Korea (and China) destabilizing East Asia.
Taiwan: With only 99 miles from each other across the Taiwan Strait, China and Taiwan have been blood-feuding for more than 70 years. China on many occasions openly insists on reunification of the two without ruling out the use of force. Partly in response to the increasing Chinese bombers, fighters and military vessels crossing over to the Strait, Taiwan announced it would raise military budget by 2% a year to about $10.7 billion in 2018, while the US seeks to “strengthen US-Taiwan military alliance”. Potential war conflict: Taiwan (and US, possibly Japan) vs. China and could seriously impact the entire Southeast Asia, and US interests.
Ukraine: Although there’s supposed to be a cease fire in Easter Ukraine, the country is experiencing increasing violence between Kiev and Moscow-supported local militias and possible collapse of the government altogether. Russia’s Putin is not shy about taking advantage of the situation with military incursion into Ukraine. Potential war conflict: Europe (and US) vs. Russia

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Giving War Too Many Chances

January 3, 2018

Giving War Too Many Chances

As the new year begins, it is important for the U.S. to acknowledge its troubling history of global war-making, especially over the past two-decades, as Nicolas J.S. Davies delineates.

I met John Lennon and Yoko Ono on Christmas Eve in 1969. I joined them and a small group of local peace activists in a Christmas fast for world peace in front of Rochester Cathedral in England, a short walk from where I lived with my family in Chatham Dockyard. I was 15 years old, and my father was the dockyard medical officer, responsible for the health and safety of the dockyard workers who maintained the U.K.’s new fleet of nuclear submarines.

Warships of the U.S. Navy. (Photo credit: U.S. Navy)

John and Yoko arrived before midnight mass. We were all introduced and went in for the service. By the time we came out, thousands of people had heard John was there. He was still a Beatle and he was mobbed by a huge crowd, so he and Yoko decided they couldn’t stay with us as planned. While most of our little group helped John back to their iconic white Rolls Royce, I and another boy not much older than me were left to shepherd a panicking Yoko back through the crowd to the car. They both made it, and we never saw them again. The next morning a florist came by with a huge box of white carnations, and we spent the rest of our Christmas and Boxing Day handing flowers to passers-by and getting to know each other – the birth of what became the Medway and Maidstone Peace Action Group.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

I May Be a Radical, But I’m Definitely Not a Utopian

January 3, 2018

I May Be a Radical, But I’m Definitely Not a Utopian

I don’t have a grand, sweeping plan. I just want peace.

I become a very fun party guest when the topic turns to politics.

My Mundane Radicalism RE: Politics

I come at questions about policy from a different angle than most. I don’t believe in policy or politics at all. Specifically, I don’t believe that some humans (“rulers”) should get moral sanction to use violence against other people (“the ruled”) to get what they want.

If that doesn’t sound controversial to you, you either 1) agree with me or 2) aren’t paying close enough attention to how politics works.

If I have one ethical ideal for how human beings should relate to each other, it’s that – non-violence.

Force is the essence of all governments from top to bottom. Whether we’re talking about Louis XIV funding the palace of Versailles, George III raising an army to crush a revolt, Vladimir Lenin redistributing confiscated land, or your local police officer enforcing a drug law/tax law/business law (or else…), you’re talking about people who rely on violence or the threat of violence to get compliance for their plans. They ultimately do not ask or require your consent. Their authority ultimately rests on the implied threat that they will beat you up if you don’t do what they say.It’s a long story, but somehow we came to believe that this was a normal state of affairs.

I don’t believe in violence. If I have one ethical ideal for how human beings should relate to each other (“politics”), it’s that – non-violence. There’s a lot more to say about ethical societies and ethical human behavior, but when it comes to politics, I’m really not much more complicated than that. My views are actually pretty mundane.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why Presidents Campaign on Peace but Rule by War

September 10, 2017

But I hope this day will not arrive.

I hope we will soon stop simply damning war presidents as hypocrites and killers so we may take the time to see the complex reasons why presidential peace candidates continue to become warmongers.

As a candidate, George W. Bush promised a humble foreign policy.

But as president — especially in reaction to the violent and tragic imperial blowback of 9/11 — humility gave way to hubris. War was not only waged against Bin Laden’s terror network and the Taliban in Afghanistan but also globally against all Terror, a campaign that somehow led U.S. forces to topple a tyrant in Baghdad only to ignite and invite more terror to a fight amongst the rubble.

As a candidate, Barack Obama railed against Bush’s wars of “choice,” promising peace in Baghdad, Kabul, and beyond.

But as president, Obama’s peace prize and campaign promises gave way to more wars of choice.Though Obama “ended” the war in Afghanistan, leaving thousands of troops stationed there, he escalated the Afghan war first. Obama pulled out of Iraq only to topple Gaddafi in Libya. He attempted to topple Assad in Syria only to jump back into Iraq once again to take on ISIS — no doubt an enemy of the United States but an enemy also interested in toppling Assad in Syria. He fought both sides of the same war, inflaming the conflict further. His expanded use of drones is also well documented.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ron Paul: “Peace is Popular”

April 16, 2017

Ron Paul: “Peace is Popular”

Reporting from Mexico City…

Last Saturday, as we’ve been reporting this week, Ron Paul and many other notables in the liberty sphere took to the stage in Lake Jackson, Texas, for a very important symposium.

The topic of discussion? War and Peace in the Age of Trump.

As promised, today we present to you highlights from Ron Paul’s speech, Peace is Popular.

Lots of great stuff to cover.

So let’s get to it…

Ron Paul on liberty…

“Liberty is a young idea,” Dr. Paul began. “It’s really not something that’s been around for thousands and thousands of years. And the benefits of liberty have just been rather recent. I think of the Industrial Revolution as a consequence of an understanding of economic liberty. And with the tremendous advancements that have existed with the Industrial Revolution I’ve always wondered, why don’t we advance in the social revolution?

“If we learn how to build so many wonderful things and the standard of living goes up for so many people and we have all of these luxuries, why is it that we haven’t figured out how to stay out of killing each other?

“So at the same time we’ve had all of this advancement that helped us with technological things and the Industrial Revolution, we’ve had more killing than ever before.

“Just think of the 20th century, with all of that advancement. I can’t help but think about my dad talking to me about when the family dairy started. He delivered milk in a horse and wagon. And that was at the beginning of the last century. It was so recent and yet we haven’t advanced very much in this social sphere of how we get along with people. I am an optimist because I believe we should be able to do that. And when you look at the history of mankind, it’s really so very young.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Washington Post Has Declared War On Peacemakers; Dennis Kucinich Rages Against The Military-Industrial-Complex

February 4, 2017

The Washington Post Has Declared War On Peacemakers; Dennis Kucinich Rages Against The Military-Industrial-Complex

Via Dennis Kucinich’s Facebook page…

I have dedicated my life to peace. As a member of Congress I led efforts to avert conflict and end wars in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Syria and Iran. And yet those of us who work for peace are put under false scrutiny to protect Washington’s war machine. Those who undermine our national security by promoting military attacks and destroying other nations are held up as national leaders to admire.

Recently Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and I took a Congressional Ethics-approved fact finding trip to Lebanon and Syria, where we visited Aleppo and refugee camps, and met with religious leaders, governmental leaders and people from all sides of the conflict, including political opposition to the Syrian government.

Since that time we have been under constant attack on false grounds.The media and the war establishment are desperate to keep hold of their false narrative for world-wide war, interventionism and regime change, which is a profitable business for Washington insiders and which impoverishes our own country.

Today, Rep. Gabbard came under attack yet again by the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin who has been on a tear trying to ruin the reputations of the people and the organization who sponsored our humanitarian, fact-finding mission of peace to the Middle East. Rogin just claimed in a tweet that as community organization I have been associated with for twenty years does not exist.

The organization is in my neighborhood. Here’s photos I took yesterday of AACCESS-Ohio’s marquee.

It clearly exists, despite the base, condescending assertions of Mr. Rogin.

Enough of this dangerous pettiness. Let’s dig in to what is really going on, inside Syria, in the State Department, the CIA and the Pentagon.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Brief Visit to the End of the World

February 23, 2016

A Brief Visit to the End of the World

People mostly want the same thing, and many of us already have it, but we don’t really notice it.

I have no way of confirming this, but I bet that if you could interview people across different centuries and cultures, asking them what they wanted most, you would notice a distinct theme in their answers.

Some people would want great riches or power. Others would say they want something very specific: to invent a particular thing, or for a particular person to love them, or to win a gold medal or give an Oscar speech.

But I suspect most of them would say they want something like this:

I want to be able to do my work and spend time with my friends and family, free to live my own values in relative peace. I just want a fair chance to pursue love and happiness, and a stable, humble life.

You could call this “The Peacetime Dream”, a life with the normal share of ups and downs—necessarily including heartbreak, health issues, setbacks and disappointments—but which isn’t defined by war or persecution. Almost universally, people want basic stability and basic freedom, and to someone who doesn’t have those things they are clearly the best things in the world.

But to someone who does have those things, their greatness is not so clear. It’s easy to forget, or never notice at all, that many or most of us already have this state of affairs, more or less—certainly most people who read blogs in their spare time.

It’s also easy to forget that many (or most?) of history’s humans never had the Peacetime Dream. I wonder how many billions of individual human lives have been lived under tyrannical regimes, forced servitude, or during a war or a plague, or maybe all of those things.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Prescription for Peace and Prosperity

August 5, 2015

A Prescription for Peace and Prosperity

The question is often asked: “What can we do?” Here is a prescription for peace and prosperity.

We will begin with prosperity, because prosperity can contribute to peace. Sometimes governments begin wars in order to distract from unpromising economic prospects, and internal political stability can also be dependent on prosperity.

The Road to Prosperity

For the United States to return to a prosperous road, the middle class must be restored and the ladders of upward mobility put back in place. The middle class served domestic political stability by being a buffer between rich and poor. Ladders of upward mobility are a relief valve that permit determined folk to rise from poverty to success. Rising incomes throughout society provide the consumer demand that drives an economy. This is the way the US economy worked in the post-WWII period.

To reestablish the middle class the offshored jobs have to be brought home, monopolies broken up, regulation restored, and the central bank put under accountable control or abolished.

Jobs offshoring enriched owners and managers of capital at the expense of the middle class. Well paid manufacturing and industrial workers lost their livelihoods as did university graduates trained for tradable professional service jobs such as software engineering and information technology. No comparable wages and salaries could be found in the economy where the remaining jobs consist of domestic service employment, such as retail clerks, hospital orderlies, waitresses and bartenders. The current income loss is compounded by the loss of medical benefits and private pensions that supplemented Social Security retirement. Thus, jobs offshoring reduced both current and future consumer income.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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